If you work from home what do you do?

[dirtychinchilla]

Try and desperately convince my customers we need a face to face meeting rather than Teams so I can get out the house.

I feel you. Had a meeting the other day in person! I made a day of it, went for lunch, sat there for 2 hours, went and met the guy. It was wonderful.

We're booking lots more in-person meetings now though. Very excited.

 

[Hilly]

Yea I WFH; Have done for years - but usually with the odd site visit thrown in - which obviously hasn't happened for a long time.

I work in IT; I do architecture, design, support, implementations. Most of my day consists of talking to people, providing best practices, advice and implementing pieces of work which come to us. Vast majority of my role is based around projects for various clients and segmenting my time between them.

I try to take a lunch, doesn't happen often. Sometimes lunch consists of actual food...But it's normally just getting away from the monitors for a bit - either guitar, a walk, or just a change of scenery. I don't have a TV in my office - but watch youtube occasionally. I don't use streaming services in my office either; Occasionally at lunch I'll play a game, but Spotify will be on quite a bit in between meetings. But music doesn't change, as when I was in an office 5 days a week I usually had my headphones on anyways!

 

[Maccy]

Yes, have done for years and now permanently since Covid started - I think this will be the norm for us now.

I write code and break apps, and I'm still trying to complete YouTube...

 

[Mr^B]

You say obvious but it's also obvious you read no further than the header.

Oh, I see, and it wasn't obvious what you were asking for.

I currently run two teams of people who build and maintain the order management systems for a hedge fund. I also still write code, and "do" project management, infrastructure, and consult with other areas of the business about business and technical issues and queries.

Typical day would be;

- Check on Asian trading, see if there were any issues overnight, handover from Asian Trading operations.
- daily meeting with the team who look after the current systems (what they did yesterday, what they're doing today, anything stopping them from doing what they need to do).
- daily meeting with the team who are building the new systems (what they did yesterday, what they're doing today, anything stopping them from doing what they need to do).
- 1 to 1 meetings with my direct reports (once a week)
- project team meetings to discuss progress, issues, etc (3 times a week), go over proposed designs, overall architecture, etc.
- Review the code being written by both teams.
- Write some code myself, possibly.
- Check on Europe trading
- Check on US start of trading
- Check on handover to US support team/trading operations

Can do all that from either the office or from home. Although after nearly 2 years of online meetings - the meetings work better if we're all in the office. But the other things work better when I'm at home as I don't get randomly bugged at my desk by people asking me questions.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I know we have streaming and digital channels now but imagine having to watch terrestrial old school like Bargain Hunt or Loose Women! That would make anyone graft away.

Last year my work colleague rang me so I answered and said 'hold on' while I turned the sound down and she was horrified.
She has mentioned it a few times how unprofessional it is that I'm watching films/series etc while I'm working because she just plonks her laptop on the kitchen table with nothing on to distract her.
I personally find that watching something increases my work rate.

 

[Arcane]

I've worked from home since COVID. I'm European Brand Guardian for a well known technology company, so check all work coming in from markets is up to scratch. However, I spend most of my time getting camos in COD and stroking the cat.

 

[krooton]

Reporting, data analysis, building automations and data processes, creating and presenting findings from analysis, all the things I do in the office (only without the 3 hour round trip daily commute)

 

[bayo000]

It is funny how many IT people in here are talking about watching netflix, tv, video gaming etc.

I might put the odd live stream on if something interesting is happening like a launch of new GPUs but wouldn't watch a tv series or play games.

I'm actually in the office today, way less productive than I'd be at home. Office set up is not as good as mine at home mainly due to less screen estate (24", 29" ultrawide and 14" laptop screen @1080p rather than 2 x 24" and a 34" @ 1440p ultrawide screens at home) and people coming over for a chat. And I waste 2hrs of my own time commuting.

Ohh and coffee is **** here.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

It is funny how many IT people in here are talking about watching netflix, tv, video gaming etc. Probably the same lot that whinge that they get dragged into too many meetings and can't make progress because of said meetings.

That's not the case at all.

PS I played cncnet yuri revenge all day Monday while WFH with my feet up, sorting tickets and waiting for inbound calls.

 

[Lopéz]

I work in IT and I definitely don't have time for Netflix or gaming.

 

[Siliconslave]

I mostly:

• respond to requests for information / proposals
• build presentations (basically recombining loads of content to make it relevant to a customer)
• build software demos (again usually from pre-existing content)
• practice said presentations & demos
• give said presentations & demos
• talk to customers to understand their problems and architectures
• argue with product management and support about how the product needs to be supported / built
• argue with sales about how the product should be sold
• keep upto date on the product and industry in general
• drink too much coffee
• swap onto tea and drink too much tea
• post on forums
• rince and repeat...

When i'm not working from home I tend to do some of the above in person & lots of it on a train

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Yeah but what is that?

Nobody knows lol. Office work seems like a nebulous activity that people get paid vast amounts for doing very little that anyone can quantify, or at least thats how it appears to an outsider.

 

[randomshenans]

I'm about to go into an hour 1:1 about my quarterly check in meeting with my manager, so that'll be fun.

 

[IvanDobskey]

Website QA and a little customer support. Easy to do from home. It's been great not having to get on the train to Cambridge every day anymore

 

[Hades]

Apparently we are all skiving at home.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58662455

Andrew Monk, a City chief executive, is not a fan of government proposals for new staff to have the right to ask to work from home.

"People abuse it," and are less productive, at least in financial services, he told the BBC.

His view is that a lot of people who ask for flexible working want to work part-time but on a full-time salary.

Since working from home I've started earlier in the morning (usually online for 7am instead of 9am), finished later (often online until 10pm rather than 6pm), rarely get to take a break and do far more than I did while in the office. Frankly I wouldn't mind going back but the company is saving as much money as it can before opening the office again next year.

 

[bayo000]

@Hades hope you're booking over time! I also spent lot more time "working" though I do balance it out by having more short breaks. I was doing this even pre pandemic when I'd spent ~9hrs in the office as I find I work best in shorter but full on sessions.

 

[Grasshopper]

I work in mechanical engineering. I can do pretty much anything I did in the office working from home. They think productivity went up when we left the office as there was less distractions and all decisions are being formalised via email so we don't tend to discuss the same thing over and over and have evidence of prior decisions. Things like design calculations and writing complicated maintenance instructions are much easier without somebody interupting you every 5 minutes with some mundane question.

 

[BowdonUK]

Do people in call centres work from home?

I remember 25 years ago speaking to a friend in the US on how they work on the phones but work from home. They were able to type in different codes on their phone and get calls directed to their home phone. I've often wondered if this happens over here?

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Do people in call centres work from home?

I remember 25 years ago speaking to a friend in the US on how they work on the phones but work from home. They were able to type in different codes on their phone and get calls directed to their home phone. I've often wondered if this happens over here?

Some of our hospital staff have their desk phones transferred to their mobiles.

 

[Macky]

Nobody knows lol. Office work seems like a nebulous activity that people get paid vast amounts for doing very little that anyone can quantify, or at least thats how it appears to an outsider.

I feel like this is the point @Tefal is getting at. If you aren't manufacturing, farming, making, mining, etc something, what value are you really adding to society? This is clearly a flawed view. Taking engineering as example: you don't just build a bridge. You must do the thinking and design it first. This takes the time of skilled people.

All working from home has done has shifted this thinking from one building to another. The concept of driving to "the office" to sit on a computer and interface with people working hundreds of miles away in a different office already feels ridiculous. Granted, face-to-face collaboration is difficult to match for efficiency and effectiveness.

Me personally, I am a railway engineer - working from home since Covid began. Trying my hardest to make sure new trains will work on new infrastructure.